2025 has been an interesting year for me. After a long time in essentially the same company, suddenly I’m loose in the wind. Traumatic as the change has been, it’s really pushed me to sharpen my sense of self, and that has value.
I spent years scaling up at a professional level, starting from coding back-end algorithms through managing first one, then eventually multiple teams working on multiple products. My scope broadened – through some quirks of the company, I ended up branching out to product managing a few products in addition to driving technology development teams.
Regardless of my role, though, my driver had always been one of responsibility. It was always in the forefront of my mind that if I didn’t take on that one more responsibility, the people around me who depended on me would be a little bit less successful. I owed it to them to do my best, and if I saw something not being done and couldn’t see a clear path to getting someone else to do it, well by golly I jumped in with both feet! Apart from the whole protagonist syndrome aspect of this, this sense of responsibility essentially defined who I was.
And then, in March, I got the same “bye, have a nice life” many others out there and all of a sudden, I didn’t have anyone to be responsible for other than myself.
So who was I?
That’s the question I’ve spent the past few months answering, and to be frank I’m happy I’m no longer where I was, as the forced change forced me to really take a look at myself and from that figure out where I’m going.
The most impactful exercise I ever did was one Mike Volker led me through in an engineering business class I took with him a lifetime ago. The simple question was, “Where do you picture yourself 10 years from now?” The idea was that with a clear destination in mind (even if it changes over time), you can form a strategy to get there, and strategy drives tactics. The clearer the vision of your destination, the clearer the steps you need to take.
10 years after that exercise, I somewhat surprised myself to realize that, having taken the steps, I indeed got where I said I’d get on my goal statement. Somewhere in the years since, though, I seemed to have forgotten to set up my next goals in life, but I’m a bit more focussed now.
For all of you out there, here’s to 2026 being the year you take the next step on your journey to your destination.
